Queensland could change its COVID-19 quarantine requirements for international travellers as soon as federal guidelines change, the health minister says.
The state's roadmap to reopening will allow fully vaccinated domestic travellers who test negative to quarantine at home from 19 November, by which time 70 per cent of eligible Queenslanders will be fully vaccinated.
for vaccinated domestic travellers who test negative whenever the state hits 80 per cent, or on 17 December at the latest.
However, international travellers will need to home quarantine until 90 per cent of Queenslanders are fully vaccinated.
Victoria and NSW have scrapped quarantine for international arrivals, but Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath insists their situations are different.
"It's, in effect, a bit simpler when you've got 1,500 plus cases every day to say, 'well, it's OK for people from overseas to come in with the virus because we've already got this virus spreading throughout our community'," she told reporters on Monday.
When asked why the state was scrapping quarantine for domestic travellers and not international arrivals when the 80 per cent target was reached, Ms D'Ath said there were a number of reasons.
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath opens possibilities for the state's border rules to change. Source: AAP
New virus variants could emerge overseas, she said, and vaccines made overseas could have lower efficacy than locally made vaccines.
However, the minister stressed the roadmap wasn't set in stone and quarantine requirements could change if Australian Health Protection Principal Committee guidelines change.
"Of course we will continue to take the advice," Ms D'Ath said.
"If things change, if the advice we're getting from the health professionals is that you can quarantine for shorter periods of time, or you don't need to put as many people into quarantine if they're close contacts, then we'll take that advice but at this stage, it is still testing tracing isolating and quarantining."
Meanwhile, the vaccine mandate for state health workers has come into force on Monday with the minister revealing that 7,000 of more than 110,000 Queensland Health staff haven't confirmed their vaccination status.
About 4,000 Queensland Health workers were on long-service or maternity leave, she said, so there were about 3,000 who would be sent a show-cause notice on Monday.
However, Ms D'Ath was confident the health system could cope without 0.02 per cent of the workforce.
"We expected this," she said.
"I have every confidence that these numbers will continue to grow each day, just as we saw when we mandated vaccinations with our aged care workers."
More than 92 per cent of state health workers have had at least one vaccine dose, but Ms D'Ath said the Australian Immunisation Register showed that coverage was closer to 95 per cent.
She said all aged care workers in state facilities have had one dose and 96.3 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Queensland recorded no local new cases of COVID-19 and one new case on hotel quarantine on Monday.
